Cloud communications provider Ozonetel acquires speech recognition vertical of YantraSoft

Hyderabad-headquartered Ozonetel Systems Ltd, a provider of on-demand cloud communication services for enterprises, has acquired the speech recognition vertical of enterprise IT firm YantraSoft Inc. in an equity-plus-​earn ​-​out deal, Ozonetel's founder CSN Murthy told Techcircle.in. However, the transaction details are not disclosed.

As per the agreement, all employees of YantraSoft's speech recognition vertical will join Ozonetel. Post the transaction, Ozonetel will add speech services to its existing offerings, which can be used in call centres to convert text to speech in Indian languages. The acquisition will also help Ozonetel to expand its footprints into the US.

"US-based Nuance Communications is the global leader in the speech recognition space. However, its offerings are costly that they charge about $400 per channel for text to speech and $1,000 for speech to text," said Murthy. "With this acquisition, we want to commoditise this space. We will offer the services on a pay-as-you go model at much cheaper prices," Murthy added.

Ozonetel was founded in 2007 by Murthy, a serial entrepreneur who had previously co-founded Intoto, a network security and convergence startup which was acquired by Freescale Semiconductor. Ozonetel enables enterprises to manage their sales, support and marketing communications. Its products include CloudAgent, a cloud-based contact centre; KooKoo, a multi-channel cloud communication platform; and primary rate interface (PRI) cards for voice communication.

The firm recently launched a hybrid model to enable BPO clients in the US to handle their international voice processes.

Ozonetel claims to have more than 300 enterprises customers that include HUL, Wipro, redBus, Intuit, Shaadi, Manipal, ICFAI, Cloud9 Hospitals and Indiamart, among others. It currently employs 50 people across its four offices in the country.

In a recent interaction with Techcircle.in, Murthy said that the firm clocked Rs 5.3 crore in revenues in the last fiscal (FY2013-14).

Ozonetel had raised an undisclosed amount in funding from a group of angel investors based out of Singapore and the US, besides Dinesh Agarwal, founder and CEO of Indiamart.com. It is now looking to raise $6 million that will be used for marketing and sales, as well as for expanding its global footprint.

Ozonetel had earlier acquired VoiceGain's Indian customers and partnered with AksharSpeech for text-to-speech service.

Headquartered in California, YantraSoft was founded in 2008 by Nixon Patel, who had earlier also founded Yantra eSolarIndia and AtriPharma. YantraSoft provides IT services to SMEs. Its offerings include software development & engineering services, IT infrastructure, application support, web development services, database management & Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephony systems.